The network includes derogatory profiles of figures such as UN experts and food writer Michael Pollan, and is part of an effort to downplay pesticide dangers, records suggest
In 2017, two United Nations experts called for a treaty to strictly regulate dangerous pesticides, which they said were a “global human rights concern”, citing scientific research showing pesticides can cause cancers, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and other health problems.
Publicly, the pesticide industry’s lead trade association dubbed the recommendations “unfounded and sensational assertions”. In private, industry advocates have gone further.
Derogatory profiles of the two UN experts, Hilal Elver and Baskut Tuncak, are hosted on an online private portal for pesticide company employees and a range of influential allies.
v-Fluence’s early clients included Syngenta and Monsanto. Later, it secured funding from the US government as part of a contract with a third party.
“I don’t think most people realize the degree of corporate espionage and USDA’s complicity with it,” said Austin Frerick, who served as co-chair of the Biden campaign’s agriculture antitrust policy committee and recently authored a book about concentration of power in the food system. “The coordination here – the fact that USDA is part of this – is really scary.”
